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Sunday, July 09, 2017

Bethesda intel campus entrance plan riles neighbors

Current driveway entrance at theIntelligence Community Campus - Bethesda

The new federal Intelligence Community Campus - Bethesda on Sangamore Road will open in the coming months, bringing over 3000 additional cars to the surrounding roads. How those cars will enter the state-of-the-art intelligence facility is a bone of contention with the surrounding Sumner neighborhood.

A well-manicured driveway entrance currently in use near the Washington Waldorf School is expected to eventually be shut down. Traffic in and out of the site would then use a center driveway across from Sentinel Drive. Neighbors would prefer that the entrance instead be at the third possible location, a driveway that lines up with the segment of Sangamore Road that connects to MacArthur Boulevard. This ostensibly would provide a more direct route for vehicles arriving from the District or via Clara Barton Parkway.

The Sumner Citizens Association has sent a letter to the appropriate federal officials, and to Congressman Jamie Raskin and Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, to suggest this alternative plan. One other issue with the Sentinel Drive intersection? As local drivers who turn right onto Sangamore from Sentinel know, the intersection was poorly-engineered and that turn is too tight, particularly for larger vehicles.

ICC-B will house employees from 16 intelligence agencies, and together with the major redevelopment of "Westbard" nearby, has many questioning why Montgomery County has failed to provide a single project to increase road capacity in that area.